


Into the Fox Hole

by flyingfoxtopus



Series: Domesticated Foxes [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 16:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingfoxtopus/pseuds/flyingfoxtopus
Summary: Amy was having a good week. She had acquired funding to update the Captain America exhibit. An old friend had found time to visit her. Both of her brothers were in town. Everything was coming up roses (Or should I say Irises).That is until the Winter Soldier showed up in DC and started shooting up the place.Sometimes Amy wondered if Captain America not being dead was really worth it. The man seemed to attract trouble like no one else. Thank the gods she didn't have anyone like that in her life.All she had to do was get her family through this emergency and she could go back to her simple life.A prequel to Domesticated Foxes, set between that story's introduction and the main story. It will probably make sense if you haven't read that one, but I'm not sure why you would care since we don'treallymeet our Marvel friends until the start of the main story.I was editing Domesticated Foxes and I couldn't stop thinking about what Amy would be doing during the events of Captain America Winter Soldier. This is what I came up with. Hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. There might be some more bits and pieces in the works.





	Into the Fox Hole

Matthew Winters leaned against the edge of a table. His team had taken over one of the Pentagon’s smaller conference rooms to plan the rescue op. They were supposed to be in the capital for a briefing on Ten Rings Activities. The front group was doing a surprisingly good job of holding up without AIM supporting them. Then the call about an American ship being taken over by pirates came in. Time was of the essence if they were going to get the hostages out. Thirty minutes in and they had already adapted one of their standard plans to fit the intel they had. Another half hour and they would be wheels up on their way to the Indian ocean. “We’ll jump just over the horizon and swim in using the mini subs. Can we get a stealth drop on a supply crate in time?”  
  
Matt’s phone buzzed, while CJ was looking for their resources list. Seeing Amy’s number, he decided he had time to at least see what his sister wanted.  
  
A: Are you on the Lemurian Star mission?  
  
M: Yes. Why?  
  
A: Get off it.  
  
M: I can’t just drop a mission because my baby sister doesn’t like it. I have this thing called chain of command.  
  
Matt was in the middle of writing a second text about unreasonable favours when the major popped his head into the room. “Stand down boys. One of the other agencies scooped you on the Star.”  
  
Martinez threw down the papers he had be shuffling through in irritation. “What? We’re ready to move. Who took it?”  
  
“S.H.I.E.L.D. The ship is of interest to them apparently.” The major shrugged. Most of the covert intelligence agencies had fingers in one or two pies that the others didn’t know about. It didn’t pay to ask too many questions. Especially about S.H.I.E.L.D. interests, they tended to be stranger and more dangerous than was healthy.  
  
Matt sat down heavily. This was only going to raise more questions with his sister.  
  
M: Are you physic or something? We just got pulled from the mission.  
  
A: Something.  
  
M: My evening just freed up. Want to grab dinner? The diner 7ish?  
  
A: Can’t that cute demolitions expert from team 3 is coming over.  
  
A: Late drinks? I’ll probably kick him out by 9.  
  
M: You are a bad person.  
  
A: Ken is in for drinks. The Fairmont at 9:30.  
  
M: …. Just because I’m going to drinks doesn’t mean I approve of your disposable attitude towards partners.  
  
A: 😘  
  
*****  
  
Amy grabbed two cans of coconut water out of the fridge and pressed the cool metal in her neck. After the workout she and Brian had just had they could use the electrolytes. Brian Braddock was the perfect friend with benefits. He could keep up with her in almost every field, and his commission with the British SAS meant that that their paths crossed enough that they stayed up to date on each other’s lives. She could count on him to get her out of a tricky situation or to just get her off. Certainly, he was more reliable than the SEAL from last night.  
  
Better at reading body language too. the SEAL had needed constant reassurance. Amy couldn’t be bothered with stroking the male ego. Either they knew they were good enough to go to bed with her or they weren’t good enough to go to bed with her.  
  
Besides which she's always had a soft spot for snipers and Brian 'Captain Britain' Braddock was easily one of the top five snipers in the world.  
  
She tossed a can to the naked man sprawled on her couch. Brian caught the can neatly, sniper reflexes honed even in the afterglow. She dropped onto the arm of the couch, taking the opportunity to leer at him. He noticed and preened under her gaze, spreading his knees and flexing slightly. Amy grinned and took a swig from her own can. He looked good. Lean muscles glistening with sweat. Blond hair sticking up in spikes on one side where she had grabbed it earlier. All topped off with that cocky grin that made his blue eyes sparkle.  
  
“Are we going out for food or ordering a takeaway?” he asked, British accent think in his relaxed state. He reached out for the beautiful woman perched on the arm of the couch.  
  
Amy let him hook an arm around her waist and pull her into his lap. “I don’t know as a general rule I don’t feed the boys I bring home. It gives them ideas about staying.” She teased, arching her neck in an invitation for him to kiss it.  
  
“Yeah. But I’m not most boys. I know that you’d skin me alive as soon as you’d let me spend the night.” He smiled as he nipped at her neck. That’s what he adored about her. No strings. No expectations. Just straight fun... We’ll not always _ straight_ fun, but fun.  
  
“There is that.” Amy leaned back against his chest. She should probably be working on her proposal to update the Captain America exhibit instead of indulging in an afternoon of sex. She had taken a personal day when he had called to say he had some free time in the city. It had definitely been worth it, but now she was feeling guilty about her lack of productivity.  
  
Brian read the conflict in her eyes. She was going to try and pretend to be responsible again. When they both knew she could do her civilian job in her sleep and wouldn’t be here if her other job needed her. There was absolutely no reason they shouldn’t spend the next few hours fooling around. “My flight leaves at eleven. Keep me company until then.”  
  
Amy rolled her eyes and levered herself out of his lap to get her phone. “Then we are ordering in. You attract paparazzi like flies.” She could write a draft of her funding application while they ate.  
  
Brian laughed and turned on her TV flicking through channels looking for the news. “Awe. Come on goddess, we could make the cover of the sun. Handsome bisexual viscount spotted with American socialite, is he finally sorting out his life? Followed by a long shockingly homophobic article that will claim I was just confused with all the men. If we play our cards right, they’ll probably also throw in a vaguely racist comment about your heritage.”  
  
“And claim that we are already engaged and I’m only with you because I want to be a duchess.” Amy vaulted back on the couch, phone and menu for her favourite Indian restaurant in hand. All that was true, even if it did ignore the real reason she wanted to stay out of the papers. Brian knew about Jun’ichi and had been there for her during the aftermath. He understood.  
  
Brian stretched his arms along the back of the couch, the news was talking about some disruption in downtown traffic. Strange that it would be one of the lead stories, but he was really more interested in international news. The yanks tended to push even important foreign news to the end. One they finished with the gas explosion, or whatever it was, they would get to the stories he was looking for. He could keep teasing Amy for now. “I agree with them that you would make a great Duchess. I’m going to want to see other people though.”  
  
“That makes two…” Amy trailed off the grainy traffic camera footage on the television catching her attention.  
  
“-unknown attacker responsible for significant damage-“ They were both ignoring the news caster, with something like this they wouldn’t have the real information anyway. The video quality was shit, but the ‘terrorist’ in causing havoc downtown was too familiar.  
  
Brain rubbed his jaw. “Shit is that...”  
  
The Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier was in DC and he was _not_ hiding.  
  
Amy snagged her shirt off the floor and pulled it over her head roughly. “Rain check on dinner. You should see about moving up your flight if you want to get out before they start grounding things.”  
  
“You think it will be that bad?” Brain watched her dress hastily. That wasn’t a good sign. As a general rule, Amy didn’t do anything hastily.  
  
Amy hopped into her pants, she needed to get to Dai and the embassy as quickly as possible. “The last time he was in the States a president was assassinated.”  
  
Brain pulled his shirt over his head in a daze. Something serious was happening and he needed to figure out how it was related to his country as quickly as possible. “I think I need to go visit my godmother.”  
  
*****  
  
Amy burst into the war room at the embassy. If the Winter soldier was here for her, she wouldn’t be going down without a fight. What she really wanted was to know why the first she was hearing about him being anywhere outside of Russia was on the _news_. The civilian news. “Someone want to explain what the Winter Soldier is doing in my city?”  
  
Dai passed her a tablet with all the data they had so far already open. “As far as we can tell? Trying to kill Director Furry. You know that secret society that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. We’ll they are moving.”  
  
She scrolled through the information. Scanning for details that the others would have missed. A snap and a flick of her wrist sent the rooms other occupants scattering. She didn’t want anyone but Dai here while she worked. They would only distract her. Let them call in the staff and Lock down the embassy but let them also leave her in peace.  
  
*****  
  
The situation did not get any clearer overnight. Reports of a second assassination attempt, this time successful, rolled in around one in the morning. Amy spent the rest of the night collecting details of the event as they became available. A ballistic report at five. An incident report from Captain America's minder around eight.  
  
They revealed a clear timeline for the event, but not much more. Sometime after ten Furry had gone to Captain America, probably for protection. Someone, probably the Winter Soldier, had shot him. The Captain had pursued the suspect but had lost him somewhere around the circle. The director had been rushed to the hospital, but his heart had given out during surgery. All very interesting, not very informative as to _why_ any of this was happening.  
  
It was the all points BoL that she found most intriguing. “They flagged Captain America as a person of interest.”  
  
Dai shrugged. He had seen that. It was a bold reaction, but they had been provoked. “He did crash a jet into the causeway, they still haven’t cleared the debris.”  
  
Amy hummed thoughtfully and settled in front of her laptop. Tablet beside her on the table. This required further unravelling.  
  
*****  
  
The next three hours were spent reading reports and communications between different agencies. S.H.I.E.L.D., FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, Interpol, DC Metro PD. The stories all lined up neatly. Too neatly for Amy's comfort. Normal someone had a different theory. A crazy conspiracy theory about some far-right cult in Utah. A known terrorist that they wanted to point the finger at until the evidence pointed somewhere else. She couldn’t remember the last time all the agencies had lined up and danced to the same tune before a suspect had been brought in.  
  
The endless scroll started to blend together. Amy drew a dagger walking the short blade back and forth over her knuckles to help maintain her focus. There was something about this whole situation that kept interrupting her train of thought. Distracting her from the report of Captain America and Black Widow at a shopping mall. “…Why?”  
  
“What?” Dai looked up from his own work mapping geo tags surprised.  
  
“Steve Rogers jumped out of an elevator, smashed through the roof off the lobby, took down a Quin Jet with only his shield, and now he’s in the wind, wanted by pretty much everyone. Does that sound like him to you?” Amy leaned back. Steve Rogers could be reckless. He could be impulsive. But he was rarely directionless. “Why would a master tactician, and we know he is a master tactician, do any of those things?”  
  
“Because he…” Dai trailed off. She was right. There had to be a reason he would burn his relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. Something big, given the timing probably something related to Director Furry's death. Something big must have come to light because of the power shuffle. Something that would leave Captain America feeling completely betrayed. “Because you’re right about who the Winter Solider is and he found out?”  
  
“That would explain some of his actions, but not all of them.” It explained him leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. It even explained some property destruction on the way out. But it didn’t explain why he was on the run. Or why S.H.I.E.L.D. had reacted so violently to his leaving. Amy leaned back in her chair, dagger points tapping a quick staccato next to her keyboard. Something bigger than one assassin and some political manipulation was going on. “I’m missing something. Look for anything strange in the international chatter and see if you can tap the international security councils feed. Something is going on and I want to know what.”  
  
Amy threw herself back into her work. Sorting through as much intelligence as she could get her hands on. If she could find enough scraps of information, she could at least piece together an outline of the situation. Enough slight variations on the same story and she could spot what they weren’t saying. The elephant they were all studiously steering away from.  
  
It was midnight when Dai interrupted her again. “S.H.I.E.L.D. just called in a domestic missile strike.”  
  
Domestic missile strikes were no small matter. They were loud. They drew civilian attention. And they were very hard to publicly justify. “Where?”  
  
“Camp Lehigh. Official story is out already, defunct munitions stored improperly. All very concerning. There’s going to be an inquest.” Dai watched Amy’s face carefully. Someone had demolished the birthplace of Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. Someone had brought the deadliest assassin of the last hundred years out of hiding to kill the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Someone had Captain America on the run. The only thing stopping him from freaking out and finding a nice safe bunker for him and Fredrick to hide in was Amy. She'd never been in over her head before. If she wasn’t now everything would be alright.  
  
Amy pursed her lips thoughtfully. Someone thought they were playing the endgame. That they could step out of he shadows without fear. But Amy lived in the shadows, she should have noticed if anything that big was moving around. “We have definitely missed something.”  
  
*****  
  
By ten the next morning, Amy had filled half of the back wall with maps and documents she thought might be relevant. The clusters hadn’t started coming together yet. Amy had her back to the mess, reading through a live feed of all military and paramilitary communications in the DC area. “Interesting.”  
  
Dai raised his head curiously, he was reviewing the police report from yesterday and so far, it was a wash. Someone was covering everything up. “What?”  
  
“Someone stole the EXO-7 Falcon from Fort Meade.” Amy’s brow furrowed. “More interestingly, they didn’t call in Iron Patriot to get it back. In fact, the brass just shut down the idea of calling him back at all.”  
  
Dai leaned back. “That is interesting.”  
  
Amy chewed her lip. Something big was happening and so far, it felt like she was trapped in Plato’s cave, trying to piece together the outside world from shadows on the wall.  
  
Dai knew that look. Amy was a dog with a bone. She wouldn’t eat, would forget to sleep, generally ignore her personal well being, until she figured it out. If she was going to see how deep the rabbit hole went, he’d better take care of her during the process. “When was the last time you ate?”  
  
Amy clicked to a new tab some senators were acting suspiciously, but she couldn’t decide whether that was because they were involved or if they were just cheating on their wives. “I had lunch with Captain Britain yesterday.”  
  
“That was two days ago lovely.” Dai draped a sweater around her shoulders. “I’m going to see if the kitchen can make you up a bento.”  
  
“No ume, please.” Amy said without looking away from her screen. Dai could handle her material needs for a little. She had a puzzle to solve. Three words kept running through her head. James Buchannan Barnes. Was the Winter Soldier’s presence here a tactical strategy to throw of Captain America, was he being used because whoever had taken over his operation after the fall of the Soviet Union didn’t have any better options, or was it all just a smoke screen?  
  
*****  
“Vixen.” Amy’s head snapped up. If Dai was using her call sign something important was happening. “It’s him again.”  
  
“What?” She snapped reaching for the screen in his hand.  
  
Dai passed her his phone playing the live feed from a traffic camera. A downtown overpass, not far from the site of the first sighting. His arm was uncovered this time. Amy blanched and opened her group chat with her brothers.  
  
A: Get off base now.  
  
A: Call it a family emergency. Head for the embassy.  
  
K: Something we should know?  
  
M: What did you do?  
  
A: I'll explain when we are all together.  
  
Whatever reason the Winter Soldier had for surfing on cars, she wanted her family as far away from it as possible. Forget him being caught on camera before. They might as well be renting billboards announcing that it was open season on their enemies…. Whoever they were.  
  
*****  
  
Ken found his sister pacing the embassy forecourt. He was in no way comforted to see that she was in full battle dress, complete with naginata and fox mask. The mask was concerning. Amy only wore the mask when something large and potentially threatening to the crown was involved. It was perched on the top of her head at least, so she wasn’t expecting an imminent attack. Whatever it was that had made her call had to be big though. Amy wouldn’t call him away for just anything.  
  
He pulled her into a quick side hug, careful to duck under the polearms long blade. “What’s the situation?”  
  
Amy squeezed him back. Her family was safe. She could focus. “The Winter Soldier is in town. You’re the last one here. We're sealing the embassy now that you’re here.”  
  
Ken followed his sister, reeling at the idea. He knew the Winter Soldier was real. His sister had been shot by the man. But he had always seemed like a distant unreal threat. Something almost mythical. The kind of thing that Amy had to deal with occasionally because she was a bright-eyed fox. Not the sort of thing that blew up a street in his capital city.  
  
Matt was waiting in the war room. Judging by the cup of tea he was cradling he was experiencing the same cognitive disconnect as his younger brother.  
  
Ken took the chair next to his him and accepted the cup Dai passed him. “What’s the plan.”  
  
“Sit tight and wait for the dust to clear.” Amy set her naginata and mask on the end of the table and dropped into her own chair. “There is more going on here than a statement assassination and some destruction.”  
  
Matt looked at his sister. What about the rest of his family, his wife his daughters? Amy had said that she would call someone in California to get them, but that had been almost an hour ago. He needed to know they were safe. “My girls?”  
  
“Picked up by consulate staff ten minuets ago. May is infinitely more prepared than you.” Amy said with a smile. Her sister in law was brilliant. Head cardiothoracic surgeon at her hospital. She juggled a career, raising two beautiful girls, and supporting her SEAL husband with grace.  
  
Matt sighed and closed his eyes. They were safe.  
  
Ken cleared his throat and nodded at Amy. Matt was going to need a moment. They might as well get on with it.  
  
Dai tossed a file across the table to Ken. “Take a look at these trajectories.”  
  
Ken whistled. A sharp angle, through a wall, on a windy night. “Impressive shot.”  
  
“Could you make it?” Amy asked pulling her computer back towards her.  
  
Ken shrugged. “Sure. Give me good a spotter on the roof to the north and a thermal scope. I can make it. Why is the angle so steep? Did he use a tripod?”  
  
Dai shook his head. That would have made the solution far easier. “No. He took the shot free standing with a glass scope and no spotter.”  
  
Ken stared at the equations, a rifle strong enough to shoot through a brick wall cleanly, it had to be big. Big meant heavy and strong recoil. Holding it steady enough to get three clean shots off? All without a scope... “...that I couldn’t do. And before you ask neither could Braddock.”  
  
“Know anyone who could?” Amy asked from behind her screen.  
  
“Sure. But his day job is fighting aliens with the Avengers.” Ken slid the file back across the table.  
  
Amy pursed her lips thoughtfully. That was a theory confirmed. Hawk eye was accounted for. Thanks to her brother, they had just rule out three of the four best snipers in the world. The Winter Soldier had killed Furry and less than half a day later Captain America had gone on the run.  
  
They spent the rest of the evening combing through all the footage they could find of the Winter Soldier attack. Amy stole her brother’s NATO logins and pulled up the satellite footage of the entire incident.  
  
Matt frowned. He was halfway through the official press report and things were making even less sense. “They’re trying to make Captain America the bad guy?”  
  
“And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.” Ken said scrolling through the #CaptainAmerica tag on twitter. “Hey. Someone got a snap of the Winter Soldier without his mask. Do you think it is the real one or is someone resurrecting ghosts.”  
  
“Let me see.” Amy held out her hand. The physicality was right. If she could see his face she would know for sure.  
  
“It’s a little blurry.” Ken demurred passing her the phone.  
  
“It’s him.” Blurry the photo might be, but Amy was pretty sure she would recognise that jawline in her sleep. She had been obsessed with him since he had tried to kill her on a roof in Prague. Two years of under grad and a year and half of graduate school had left her intimately familiar with the most attractive of the Howling Commandos. He had been the catalyst that had gotten her into history. And the mystery of what had happened to her had gotten her through her degrees.  
  
She had formed a slightly perverse attachment to the idea of the tortured soldier during the worst times with Jun’ichi. During some of those worst times she had tried to figure out how the soft eyed soldier form her research became the dead eyed man who had shot her. His survival had helped her to believe that she could survive too.  
  
She didn’t know what he was doing out there. Aside from trying to kill what looked like Captain America and Black Widow. But she hoped he made it out of this. She wasn’t sure he would though. Not if his handlers were fine with people seeing his face. She knew that if she confessed to wanting him to survive, they would all look at her like she was crazy. Her brothers and Dai didn’t fully understand her attachment to him. She needed to say something though. They were all waiting for her.  
  
Carefully she collected herself. “When this is over, I will be righting a very snarky letter to the Journal Politica.”  
  
*****  
  
Amy’s brothers ended up crashing around three in the morning. Matt snagged a pillow off the couch and Ken stretched out under the long table. Dai held out a little longer but eventually Amy made him lay down in the corner of the room. Amy wouldn’t sleep herself until everything was over. She definitely wouldn’t sleep now. Everything had gone quiet. Too quiet.  
  
Around six thirty, Amy’s phone rang. The caller ID showed the Smithsonian. “Hi, now’s not a great time. I’ve got a family thing.”  
  
“What do you mean it’s missing?” A break in. Of all the days for there to be a break in, and in her department.  
  
Amy rubbed her forehead. Something big and shadowy was happening. Could her ‘normal’ life just putter along without her for a few days? “I think there is a spare in the archives. If you can’t find it, grab the one we use for school trips for now. It is a good fake. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference. I'll figure something more permanent out when I’m back.”  
  
While she was on the phone Matt had woken up, he had even found coffee somewhere. “Problem?” He asked passing her a cup.  
  
Amy waved away the concern. “Break in at the museum. Some clown stole the Captain America uniform right off the mannequin.”  
  
“You don’t think…?”  
  
“No.” She took a sip and set the mug down. Stale. Very stale. Probably the pot from yesterday evening before they had switched to energy drinks. “He would be stupid to, it’s just wool and leather. He’d be better off with a standard flak jacket.”  
  
Matt didn’t have his sister’s fussy nature when it came to coffee, he had already downed half his mug. If one of Amy’s wild Winter Soldier theories was right, why not the one about how to break his mine control. “What if he’s trying to get _someone_ to recognise him.”  
  
Amy picked her mug of sludgy coffee back up and swirled it absently, she could use the caffeine. “Then he would be better off with a black eye and a Brooklyn Dodgers hat…. And the flak jacket, it takes a lot to break brain washing that has been going on as long as his has.”  
  
*****  
  
Amy’s brothers had given up on information processing when the helicarrier had first shown up on the satellite feed. Preferring to watch the disaster unfold, helpless as they were to stop anything. Dai and Amy had joined them pushing the feed into the largest screen on the wall. When the three flying behemoths had appeared from the Potomac everyone in the had agreed that they had to be the missing factor. Then, just after the second carrier went down, someone had uploaded a huge collection of files that tripped several of Amy’s alerts.  
  
It took Amy less than five minutes to scan the files and get an idea of what they were. “Well shit.”  
  
“What?” Ken didn’t even blink. Too engrossed by the two masses of sinking rubble and one remaining helicarrier slowly rising into the sky.  
  
The final pieces were clicking into place. Everything made sense. Horrible, terrible sense. “It was fucking Hydra.”  
  
“That made the Winter Soldier?” Ken asked. That would make sense. He had been around since the 50’s. Hydra could have made him during the war. Then Russia had captured him during their final push. A few years to turn him to their side and presto tame assassin.  
  
“That everything.” Amy was only half paying attention. There were so many files. Mission reports. Raw data and results from years of experiments, sanctioned and unsanctioned. “Hydra has been pulling string behind the scenes for years. Someone just dumped all the files onto the web.”  
  
“Someone?” Matt asked from his place in front of the TV. A computer set next to the large screen now showed the news feed from one of the major networks. The anchors trying and failing to disguise their panic.  
  
“Black Widow. She signed her work.” Amy clicked open the mission report on the Winter Soldier's run in with her. No name, they had recognised her as a fox but hadn’t connected that with her.  
  
She read until Dai called her over to watch the last carrier fall. Siblings and cousins alike sat in stunned silence. Nothing this big had happened since the Chitauri in New York. The kidnapping of the president. The dark elves in London. Nothing compared.  
  
The silence was eventually broken by Matt’s phone.  
  
“My team’s been called in. Apparently, Captain America was on the last helicarrier to go down. Hopefully it is just search and rescue.” He watched a worried look cloud his sister’s face. Cloud was a generous description. It was hardly more than a tightening around her eyes. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the change. Matt knew his sister though. She wasn’t worried. “He’s survived worse.”  
  
Amy shook her head. Just because he was the subject of her thesis didn’t mean she worried about him. By all accounts Steve Rogers was a reckless bastard, but he could handle himself. “I’m more worried about what happened with the Winter Soldier.”  
  
“It looks like he was on the helicarrier too. Don’t worry. We’ll retreat if we see him.” Matt paused in the door. He loved his sister, and he knew she had slight obsession with the Winter Soldier. “You know he’s probably dead right?”  
  
“Yeah?” Amy raised an eyebrow. “And I should have died in Prague, and Jilin, and Malolos, and Queens, and here we are.” Most people probably would be dead after the helicarrier crash. But the Winter Soldier? He was a survivor.  
  
Matt considered all his sister’s near-death experiences. She was good, and the Winter Soldier was good enough to have been one of those experiences. “I’ll be careful.”  
  
*****  
  
M: Captain America managed to wash up on shore.  
  
M: I swear his luck is better than yours.  
  
A: Glad he’s alright.  
  
M: The damn frisbee shield is still in the water though. Seriously who throws their best weapon?  
  
A: Same guy who went into a fire fight wearing a fucking wool onesie. A onesie that he stole from my collection by the way.  
  
M: Oh right the idiot and national hero.  
  
M: Switching tanks and then I’m back under.  
  
A: Beer is on me for a month if you’re team brings the shield up. I hate the idea of an artefact like that at the bottom of the river.  
  
M: Easy.  
  
M: Unless I punch the coast guard rear admiral that thinks he can tell me how to do my job.  
  
A: Let me know if anyone needs punching. They can’t court-martial me.


End file.
